i will cry, everyday, for the rest of my life, and i’m happy to say that

I open my body, or I try to. I want to cry, but sometimes it doesn’t feel natural. Sometimes it feels like a wave is coming but there’s some force, some dam or wall restricting the water, demanding it to settle, commanding me to calm without the proper release. I curl over onto myself, breathing heavily, begging the tears to come, but they won’t. Maybe it’s this place, wherever I am, the environment reminding me this is not a place to reveal these emotions. I am trapped in a room where I must act fine, when all I crave is the release of tears.

Perhaps it was being alone at that moment, that wouldn’t allow me to cry. But should emotion be some kind of performance? Today I went through this experience. I was only able to let go when I called my mom. I think knowing she would listen is what allowed me to feel my emotions. Knowing she was there to soothe me, that maybe there would be nothing to comfort, if not for the cracking of my voice, for the sniffling after wiping the tears away. My brain became quiet and loud at the same time. All the thoughts I needed to share, somehow existing alongside a deep, isolating silence. Maybe I subconsciously tried to talk myself out of feeling anything at all, but I wear my heart on my sleeve, and feeling nothing would be harder. Letting go is the easier option, and I don’t want to fight what will lead to my peace, eventually.

There is an exact moment when I know nothing will get better unless I acknowledge my emotions, unless I allow myself to break open. I don’t want to explain the full context (“it only has to make sense to me for me to do it”), I just want to address these feelings abstractly. Maybe none of this is intelligible. Maybe it makes perfect sense to you. Maybe it doesn’t matter at all.

I think about a line from a TV show I saw recently. One of the characters said something about how if she allowed herself to feel everything, all at once, all the time, it would be unbearable. That she has a way of being aware of it, but not feeling it. I wish I could do that. I wish I didn’t feel everything all at once, I wish I had the specific emotional skills to not constantly worry about every problem in the world, and in my friends lives, and in my family’s lives, and my own life, simultaneously. I wish I could be aware, be supportive, and end it at that. But right now I can’t. So I sit with that.

I want to end this with something true. I am so sensitive. Sometimes it’s easy to cry, sometimes I cry when I don’t want to, sometimes I cry without even realizing it. And opposed to that, on days like today, sometimes all I wish to do is cry, and nothing comes at all. I don’t know why. All I know is that this is part of what makes me human. I feel so deeply and I feel almost all of it all at once.

Maybe today my parts were trying to protect me. But avoidance or restraint isn’t protection. I don’t know which part was doing this, but I appreciate the attempt to help me. I will be more vigilant, more aware, the next time this happens. I will allow my parts to feel and I won’t cast judgment or attempt to resist it. I will cry. I will cry so much, maybe everyday, for the rest of my life. I’m okay with that truth.